topic HA4 firewalls in General Topics

HA4 firewalls

SylviaPudimat — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:14:31 GMT

Hi,

is there any reference which firewalls do have the HA4 option?

Can´t find any information about.

Thanks in advance!

Re: HA4 firewalls

PavelK — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:51:00 GMT

Hello @SylviaPudimat

HA4 is used for Firewall clusters HA Clustering Overview. This is supported only by models of Firewall mentioned in the link. In these Firewalls you will find the option for HA4 under: Device > High Availability > Cluster Config. In all other Firewall models that do not support clustering this option is not available under High Availability configuration.

Kind Regards

Pavel

Re: HA4 firewalls

SylviaPudimat — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 07:17:41 GMT

Thanks Pavel, this is exactly what I searched for. It was confusing to me, because the HA Pair and HA Cluster options are sometimes mixed up in the documentation.

Re: HA4 firewalls

SylviaPudimat — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:01:49 GMT

I have one question beyond. The link given describes in the picture, that there is a L2-connection between DCs (guess some VXLAN/EVPN). Within the text it says: "HA clusters support a Layer 3 or virtual wire deployment."
Could anyone describe how exactly this is meant and configured? Thanks!

Re: HA4 firewalls

CosminM — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:08:55 GMT

The HA4 link between cluster nodes is an L2 connection.

"HA clusters support a Layer 3 or virtual wire deployment." This means that on a firewall that is part of an HA cluster, you can only configure Layer 3 or virtual wire security zones for transit traffic. For instance, you cannot use an L2 security zone on such a firewall node.

Re: HA4 firewalls

SylviaPudimat — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:56:10 GMT

Okay thanks! This document https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/pan-os/9-1/pan-os-admin/high-availability/ha-concepts/ha-links-and-backup-links
states, that HA2 Link for session sync is L2/Ethertype 0x7261.
Does the same apply for HA4 too? If yes it would be difficult to have devices in between of the two cluster member as Ethertype 0x7261 seems to be "special"...

And next question:
Do this Use Cases for Active/Active HA (Pairs) apply to Cluster configurations t00?
https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/high-availability/set-up-activeactive-ha/determine-your-activeactive-use-case

Thanks!!!